This summer, millions of Americans have been bugged out by pests ranging from spotted lanternflies in the Northeast to aphids in New York City to mosquito in Los Angeles.
Here’s a rundown of the most common insect infestations
Ticks
The yearly peak in the number of disease-carrying eight-legged animals occurs in early July, and this year is shaping up to be particularly fierce. “If it appears that tick seasons are becoming longer and more severe, that is because they are. And if 2023 appears to be the worst — or almost so — year in memory, that’s because it is,” Time magazine reported late last month. According to the journal, more ticks are being discovered in the Northeast and Upper Midwest.
Because oak trees produced a huge number of acorns in 2021, giving extra food for mice and chipmunks, ticks are out in force this year. “Now those ticks are ready for their second blood meal,” the New York Times ominously noted last week. There is also a long-term tendency towards increased tick prevalence as a result of climate change, as warmer springs and autumns contribute to longer pest seasons.
Lyme disease is carried by black-legged ticks, which have expanded from the Northeast to 43 states and can cause devastating symptoms such as severe migraines, facial palsy, and arthritis. “Diagnoses of Lyme disease — a bacterial infection spread by bites from black-legged ticks or deer ticks — were 17% higher in the first week of June than they were a year earlier, according to data from Athena Health, a health care technology company,” CNN reported last Saturday.
Lyme disease is not the only disease carried by ticks, nor is it the only tick-borne illness spiking this year. “Another illness that public health officials want people to be aware of for the 2023 tick season is babesiosis,” the “Today” show reported in June. “A March 2023 report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that eight states in the Northeast are seeing increasing rates of the emerging illness. Babesiosis is spread by the deer tick and generally causes no symptoms but can be fatal 1% to 2% of the time.”
Spotted lanternflies
The Northeast is also the epicentre of a new outbreak of polka-dotted bugs, which feed on — and can kill — trees, particularly fruit trees, posing a severe danger to businesses such as logging and agriculture.
According to a recent Axios report, spotted lanternfly infestations are now found in every county in Delaware and New Jersey, 51 of New York state’s 67 counties, parts of Ohio, and much of Pennsylvania. The website Gothamist stated on Monday that lanternflies “are ahead of schedule in New York” due to a drop in chilly nights caused by climate change. (New York City is also dealing with swarms of aphids, a bothersome but harmless little flying insect that is frequently misidentified as a gnat, which scientists believe are appearing abnormally early due to the area’s mild winter.)
The lanternfly is an Asian native that was discovered in the United States in 2014. It is now found from Massachusetts to North Carolina along the Eastern Seaboard. “Lanternflies easily build to high numbers,” Frank Hale, a professor of horticultural crop entomology at the University of Tennessee, wrote in the Conversation in 2021. Residents in places such as New York and Philadelphia are encouraged to kill any bugs they come across.
Mosquito
The blood-sucking fly is a usual summertime annoyance, but some areas of the country are seeing particularly terrible mosquito seasons this year. According to the Associated Press, government-run mosquito traps in Orange County, Calif., are capturing three times the typical amount of mosquitoes. Who is the perpetrator? Last winter’s tremendous rains in California.
Drones are being used by the county to deliver bacterial spore pellets that kill mosquito larvae. The Metropolitan Mosquito Control District in Saint Paul, Minnesota, has received a record number of calls and emails about mosquito activity. According to the organisation, this is because the drought years of 2021 and 2022 left larvae unhatched, and they’re hatching now that precipitation has returned.
Mosquito bites are typically an irritation, but they can transmit dangerous diseases, particularly in warmer climes. According to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, dengue fever, the Zika virus, and chikungunya have all been detected in states and territories such as Florida, Hawaii, Texas, and Puerto Rico in recent years. Last month, the CDC confirmed that four persons in Florida and one in Texas had locally acquired malaria, the first time it had spread in the United States since 2003. The CDC suggests draining any standing water from your property and using insect repellant to reduce your risk of mosquito-borne illness.
